Foolish Thinking from Foolish Hearts

I have been looking at at Romans chapter 1.  I will continue to do so in the weeks to come.    I have shared at Immanuel Baptist Church from that passage that there is a suppression of the Truth.  I believe that today you and I are living in a time when our culture is suppressing the Truth of God, we are refusing to recognize God as God and we refuse to worship God as God.  I also fear that what you read in Romans 1 is occurring in our very own nation.  We have been given over to our sinful desires and darkened hearts.  I fear that in our rebellion, we will as a nation wake up and realize the full judgment from God if we do not repent!  

I’m going to get back to Romans 1 but before I do consider Ephesians chapter 2, Paul writes and says that we were dead in our trespasses and sins.  Listen:  ^NIV Ephesians 2:1-2 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.   There once was a day when we were walking according to the Prince and the power of the air of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

That's what Scripture tells us.  Paul says you are spiritually dead, in your sins without Jesus Christ.  Yet, this world would have us to believe a different story!    There is a man who is pretty influential in our society.  His name is Eckhart Tolle.   I want to run through some things he teaches and compare them to the idea I spoke about last week on Suppressing the Truth:  Tolle would say that we are just spiritually unconscious.    Really?   Paul says we are spiritually dead not unconscious, and Christ through faith, in his grace has made us alive!   You remember                     ^NIV Ephesians 2:4-5 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-- it is by grace you have been saved.

 When it comes to salvation, Tolle says, that goodness is already in you, and you need to allow it to emerge.   I do not know about you but I just see goodness emerging every night on the news!  (Yeah right)   When I look around I see goodness emerging out of people don’t you!    Amazing is it not!    Instead of goodness coming out what I see is a suppression of the truth occurring in our hearts as a society leading us more and more into a rejection of God, and living lives that are rebellious toward God! 

Tolle has the idea that heaven is not a location or a place, but that heaven is the inner realm of the consciousness.   Is that right?   Lord, I hope not!   Jesus said in John chapter 4, “I go to prepare a place for you.”   Jesus said I am headed to a place. 

When it comes to Jesus, Tolle says that Jesus was no more God than you or I are God! He says the thing that was different about Jesus was that he was more aware of his connection to the life force.    That’s interesting because Jesus said, ^NIV John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.

Tolle says, that all religions are equally false and equally true.  What a brilliant statement!  Equally false and equally true, depending on how you use them.   He says if you believe that only your religion is true than you are using it to serve your ego.  Well, I suppose he is using his philosophy and religion and he is not serving his ego?  Give me a break!   (is it  just a serving ours because we believe the unique claim that Jesus Christ is the only way to God the father!)

 When there is a suppression of the truth you begin to suppress parts of the word of God that you do not believe is true and that leads us to a mixed up idea of God and religious principles.   Please hear me today:  If you suppress the truth it leads to a rejection of God! 

 I want to read Romans 1:21 today:   

^NIV Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

This passage is a decline, a going down, a spiral out of control.   If you read this passage you will see it.   When there is a suppression of the truth there is a rejection of God and they become futile in their thought process!     Paul says that when you suppress the truth we become vain in your mind.   When you suppress the truth you become vain in your reasoning.  The word there thinking, is a compound word that means through and reason.  Paul says, reject the truth and we become empty in our ability to reason!  Rejecting the truth of God leads us to loose the ability to think through things rightly, or reason correctly!     Paul is saying that when man rejects God it has an impact on your mental process! 

Look around you; our society does not make much sense.  Does it?  We are loosening the threads that have held us together, and without a revival we are in trouble! As a nation we are on a slippery slope of decline, and in this process it is making less and less sense. 

When there is a suppression of God it impacts the way you think because you have rejected God the source of all right and reason! And that suppression and rejection has a negative impact on a life!   Now that word thinking or imagination depending on your translation is in a negative context.   In English those words are not normally negative are they?    We are told to reason, we are told to build our imagination, and we think all those things are good.  However, here in this passage I assure you it is very negative in this context!  This word speculation is negative throughout the entirety of the New Testament.    You find the root of this word over in 2 Corinthians 10:5 when Paul says, “^NIV 2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

So the concept is this:  When you have a rejection against God you are reasoning ability is not reliable.  It is biased, it is slanted and it is like the American news reports…  it does not make sense! 

Look at what happens not just your mental process but also your heart!  Look at what he says:  they become darkened in their foolish heart!  The idea from Paul is this: their foolish heart is growing darker and darker and darker!   When you come to the place that you reject God as God, when you suppress what you posses in your knowledge about God, when you fail to worship God as God, the result is that your heart grows hard! 

Eckhart Tolle and others in our culture say things like: “come and believe this and it will enlighten you.”   What does Shirley McClain say?  “Believe what I believe in because it brings enlightenment”   The suggestion is that we need to talk to a rock it because it will enlighten you.  Communicate with the dead spirit out there, it will enlighten you!  Paul says, it does exactly the opposite; it takes your foolish heart into a deeper darkness, and a deeper darkness.

In verse 22 Paul said: “Professing to be wise”, this is a reference to the educated and the social elite in Paul's day.  Those who reject God and suppress his truth believe themselves to be intellectually superior to you and me.  They see most of us as a Bible thumping southern folk who are uneducated.  We are nothing more than men or women whose needing a crotch to hold us up.  We are not enlightened enough to talk to a rock or to trust in a crystal and its power.   Beloved, can I remind you that the elite in Hollywood are worth millions and everyone in our nation today and throughout the world adores them, and they look at us as if we are crazy, or second class, because we are not enlightened. Paul says they think themselves to be wise but they have become morons, foolish.   

Paul uses a word here to say that their mental capabilities are defective I'm not trying to be funny here but Paul is saying that when you reject God you begin to act as if you're retarded mentally.  There is a suppression of the truth, then there is the rejection of God, and the result is your reasoning then departs, your life becomes enslaved to sin, and your heart grows darker and darker, and then you think yourself to be the wisest man or woman on the earth but you are in actuality a fool, a moron.    

The Biblical definition of a fool might surprise you… You read about a full a lot in the Proverbs and throughout the Old Testament, and occasionally in the New Testament.  We think the definition of a fool one who constantly makes mistakes.  No not at all! That is all of us!  All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.   All of us have made mistakes, and all of us continue to make mistakes.  Biblically speaking:  A fool is someone who continually believes error.  A fool is someone who will not be corrected in his error, and a fool is someone who trust in his error, and a fool is someone who desires you to embrace his error.

Every error out there wants us to embrace it and say it is equally as good as a truth.  And please here today:  there is not anything as good as my God!  There is no one as good as my Jesus!   A fool believes error as if it were true!  Nebal embraced error and refused to be corrected from error and trusted in error and wanted others to embrace the error!  That is a fool!  That is man in his own rationale.